Lardy

I don't know about you, but 10 days of constant grazing at treats both savory and sweet have left me feeling somewhat lardy. I've consumed my own body weight in Cadbury's Roses AND Twiglets -- the latter being something of a surprise, as I thought I didn't like them. (PJ is most unhappy; the Twiglets are his territory.) I still have vast amounts of food around the house to use up -- panettone, parkin, toffee, chocolates, cheesy twists, and yes, a few Twiglets -- so we really needed to get out and do some exercise at the weekend. Which we did, in the form of a 6 km walk around the neighbourhood on Sunday.



For the first time since we moved here 8 months ago, the woods weren't knee-deep in treacherous mud; they were knee-deep in frozen treacherous mud, a very different and much more manageable proposition. We worked our way through them, across some fields, through an abandoned churchyard, under the railway lines, and over to the Itchen Navigation. We then walked all the way back alongside the river to Allbrook, for the final and annoyingly uphill leg of our loop. Crimbo chocolate sustained us on our journey, but it was good to get back inside and build yet another fire -- it's COLD here. We even saw icicles on branches that were dragging in the Itchen, which is rather unusual. Unfortunately, there wasn't any ice on the canals, so no skating a la the Dutchies for me.